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Former Harper aide recalls concern about independence of audit of Mike Duffy’s expenses

Chris Woodcock, former PMO communications strategist, tells Senator Mike Duffy’s trial he didn’t direct Duffy or senators what to say and agreed that scripting conclusion of an audit would be improper.

Chris Woodcock, former director of issues management in the Prime Minister's Office, insisted at the Mike Duffy trial that he did not script lines for senators in the senate expense scandal, but merely wrote up and circulated the views the senators had arrived at independently. (Justin Tang / CP)

OTTAWA—Act 3 of the Mike Duffy trial closed unexpectedly early Tuesday with a slight plot tweak — the first ever hint that any senior aide in Prime Minister Stephen Harper’s office had qualms about the way the government responded to the unfolding Senate expense controversies in 2013.

It came even as Harper insisted that he was always clear in his mind about what happened, and who was responsible.

“The person here on trial is Mr. Duffy because Mr. Duffy took the money. Nobody else did,” Harper said Tuesday on the campaign trail. “Nobody else had anything to do with that. That was his decision.

“I told him to pay it back and to this day he apparently has not done so. The reason he has not done so is Mr. Wright paid back the taxpayers. Mr. Wright did pay back the taxpayers. But he decided to do that without my knowledge or without my consent, contravening my instructions and, as a consequence, let Mr. Duffy off the hook.”

But others in Harper’s employ weren’t always so clear — at least that’s the picture that emerges after the third phase of the trial ended with testimony by a third Harper aide.

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Judge Charles Vaillancourt has heard of many discussions and emails showing the Conservative party was willing to pay Duffy’s tab when it was thought to be just $32,000. When it soared to $90,000 and Duffy said he was broke, Harper’s top aide Nigel Wright decided to pay “personally.” Nobody has directly testified as to what Harper’s instructions to his staff were.

Chris Woodcock, then-issues management director in the Prime Minister’s Office, played a key part in the elaborate effort within the PMO to control the political fallout from revelations about Duffy’s questionable housing expense claims.

He briefed Harper on the media reports early on, and said he was well aware of the views of the prime minister and Wright, his direct boss — that Duffy’s expenses were politically embarrassing because it was “not ethical. It didn’t pass the smell test,” he testified.

Grilled about the ethics of his own role, Woodcock admitted there was one point when he was “wary” when it came to the ethics of approaching the outside audit firm Deloitte.

It came in March 2013.

Wright was irked after Duffy’s lawyer Janice Payne wrote to PMO: “As you know Deloitte is pressing (Duffy for documents) and needs to be told that Senator Duffy is no longer part of their review.”

Wright, in an email dated March 1, 2013 to senior PMO aides Benjamin Perrin, Ray Novak, Patrick Rogers and Woodcock, expressed frustration with her and told Perrin to tell her the PMO was “trying to make this happen, but it is not easy.”

“Today I asked Sen. Gerstein to actually work through senior contacts at Deloitte and with Sen. LeBreton,” Wright wrote. (Wright has testified he asked Gerstein only to ensure that Deloitte was in touch with the committee and knew of its changed mandate.)

“The outcome we are pushing for is for Deloitte to report publicly that IF Kanata were the primary residence then the amount owing would be the $90 thousand figure and that since Sen. Duffy has committed to repay this amount then Deloitte’s work in determining primary residence is no longer needed,” Wright wrote.

“At the time I was reading these emails my view was we still needed to confirm what Sen. Tkachuk had told us,” said Woodcock. “At this point I felt wary and concerned that if this was to cross a line I’d be very uncomfortable with it, but as I recall it didn’t get to that point where I felt it had become a large problem.”

Woodcock said it would have been “improper” to script the conclusion of an independent audit — yet he denied that ever happened.

Woodcock said he wavered only because he was unsure Sen. David Tkachuk had accurately conveyed to Deloitte that the whole “committee’s intention” was to end the review of Duffy’s residency.

Woodcock testified he never voiced any ethical concerns to anyone. He had no concern about writing public statements for Duffy, senators or government members who declared Duffy had repaid the expenses even though he knew it to be at odds with the fact that Gerstein, the Conservative Fund’s, was set to pay Duffy’s bill, then thought to be $32,000, he told Bayne.

“It didn’t seem significant at that time,” said Woodcock. “I can certainly see it today with the benefit of hindsight and, you know, all the emails together . . . . Now I think that’s the judgment call I made at the time that I might not necessarily agree with today.”

Woodcock said his “focus” was on ensuring the money that was owed to taxpayers was to be repaid. “At the time I felt that we were doing the right thing, I felt like it was the truth,” he said.

Woodcock testified he never read the ultimate email from Wright advising that Wright was going to pick up the $90,000 tab for Duffy’s expenses “personally.” He added he “just skimmed” those Wright emails about the Conservative Fund’s willingness to pay.

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